Goading Their Ghosts Into the Howling Snow
by Morbane
Summary: A numb self-sacrifice of the weakest? No. An alternate course of events for the last quarter of Obernewtyn, for the purpose of giving some characters I like a nicer fate. Some violence.


Crosspost from AO3. Written for alianne for the New Year's Resolution 2013 challenge and kindly and effectively beta'd by kurushi.

[_I told myself that whatever Ariel guessed from my expression as I had looked out at the mountains, he could not possibly know we were plotting an escape that very night. ... But we did not go that night, for at [nightmeal], Sly Willie came for Cameo, and there was nothing any of us could do but watch as she was led away…_]

* * *

As Cameo got up to follow Sly Willie, her shoulders and head drooped, and her cheeks lost the colour she had had in laughing. She had taken not two steps away from the table, and yet it was like watching a light disappear away along a road. Matthew started, and watched her go. His distress was so obvious that I kicked him under the table.

Recalling himself, he glared at me instead.

"There's nothing we can do now," I sent to him on a thin probe. The meal chamber was too conspicuous. Even to look askance was dangerous.

But he took more hope than I had intended. "Aye, not now," he replied mentally, his own thoughtspeech given fuel by his agitation, but still fainter than mine. "But I'll not leave without her."

I shrugged as if in disdain of him and finished my evening meal in silence, pondering the obstacles to our escape.

It had not been my habit, in the various Council orphan homes where I had lived before Obernewtyn, to form friendships. I knew that my abilities were hated by the Council, and I had since learned that the Council and Herder Faction had secret uses for talented Misfits such as myself. My secrets were too dangerous to share — a danger to myself, and to those I might share them with.

But for a time it had seemed that at remote Obernewtyn, I had come to the end of the world — and the end of what the Council could do to me. I had told myself that it was useful to have allies in the face of Obernewtyn's mysteries, but in truth, that was an excuse.

I had simply been glad of companionship.

Now I wondered, sourly, what my indulgence had cost me. I could not cast off Matthew or Dameon to suit myself, and it seemed that Matthew was determined to save Cameo as well, however impractical this was. When I had acted alone, I need only look out for my own safety and desires; now that I had allies, I must also heed their aims. For a moment I saw these allegiances as a weave of chains, stretching off as far as I could imagine through the loyalties owed by those I was loyal to.

It was not that I had no feeling for Cameo. Her innocence, and shy delight in Matthew, had awoken a kind of warmth in me, and set us all to dreaming of a world where her brightness could thrive. What was being done to her sickened me.

I told myself it was pragmatism, not callousness, that made me dismiss Cameo from our plans. Willie's summons could mean only one thing: Alexi and Madam Vega had more experiments to perform upon her. Surely we could not steal her out from under their noses.

Surely — but had I really thought about it, or merely dismissed the possibility? Perhaps, if I were to embrace the risk of friendships, I needed to demand of myself a new, bolder kind of thinking.

In that moment of self-judgment, I conceived of a new plan.

Strange that, at its surface, it should look so much like the first.

* * *

I waited an hour after I had been locked into my room, worked the tumblers, and slipped towards the wing of Obernewtyn where Matthew and Dameon slept. I found Matthew's mind alert to my probe — in his deeper mind, I sensed the thoughts of Cameo that prevented him from sleeping, but I did not pry.

"I have a plan for us all to escape," I sent to him. "Bring Dameon."

Very softly, through the door, I heard him stir, and Dameon also. To my alarm, I was not the only one so alert. "Where are you going?" I heard. It was their room-mate, a wiry nervous boy called Yanus.

"He has a fever," Matthew said, and I heard Dameon moan, as if delirious. "He was out in the far fields until evening. I suppose he took chill."

Another moan, and shuffling sounds. They must be getting dressed. I put on the cross, shrill voice of Guardian Myrna, hoping that Yanus was sleepy enough to mistake me for her, and pushed at his mind as I spoke. "What is all the fuss?"

There was a pause. "Dameon's taken ill, Guardian," Matthew said, sounding sulky and uncertain.

"Bring him out, then," I demanded, unlocking the door.

Matthew came out, supporting Dameon, whom he had wrapped in an additional blanket. I was heartened by his quick thinking, for we would need all the supplies we could get for our journey through the snowy passes.

"I'll need you to carry him, boy," I ordered Matthew, still in a harsh voice, and shut and locked the door firmly behind them again. I pulled us towards the kitchen. The cook and her daughter were worked hard enough that they should not stir at this hour.

"Cameo's not returned?" Matthew asked me.

I shook my head.

"Then why," he began belligerently, but Dameon put a hand on his arm, sensing my excitement.

"As you know, Alexi and Madam Vega mean to test Cameo's abilities in earnest," I said, referring to the conversation I had overheard the previous day. "I can find no trace of her mind in the house, and while it is possible I have missed her, another possibility seems greater to me. I believe that they have taken her to the machine they call the Zebkrahn. If we are to escape together, I think our only chance is to go there tonight, find Cameo, and strike out for the mountains."

Dameon and Matthew gaped at me.

* * *

Anticipating a myriad of logical objections, from Dameon especially, I explained my reasoning. In my last nightly visit to the doctor's office, I had seen Ariel, Madam Vega, and Alexi emerge from the entrance of a secret passageway. Selmar had been with them. They had spoken of her disparagingly; it seemed whatever value they had placed in her had been used up, as they had used her very self up, mind and spirit and strength. And now their attentions had fallen again on Cameo.

They had spoken of a machine called the Zebkrahn, which affected Talented Misfits in some way. I felt sure that this machine was the same one that had caught me earlier that year, when my mental probe had fallen into its net.

"I believe they are holding Cameo where the machine is," I said. "She has disappeared for days at a time before, and surely they would not bring her back to Obernewtyn in the middle of an experiment unless they must."

"Elspeth, ye're a wonder," Matthew said. "I canna believe that you, of all people, would be so daring!"

"I cannot credit it either," said Dameon, smiling wryly, "but what is more, I cannot credit it with good sense. You mean us to strike out in the dark, past the wolves and the snow, to find a place we've never been, make those we most fear aware of our plans, and run away, with the worst of winter yet to come?"

"As to Madam Vega and Alexi," I said, "there is a good chance that we may come upon them sleeping, and steal Cameo away before they know she is gone. In that case, it will seem as if she has simply wandered off, and it may be days before our escape is connected with hers."

"Mayhap they are not there at all," Matthew said, warming to my ideas. "I wouldna put it past Madam Vega to scorn sleeping so far out from shelter. They might have left Cameo tied up alone somewhere," he concluded, his eyes reflecting the kitchen's embers with bright indignation.

"And what if she's not there?" Dameon said.

"We can turn back," I said, "and use the information we've gathered."

I hoped it would not come to that, but I was not foolish enough to speak as though we risked everything by doing as I had suggested.

I waited uneasily for Dameon's next objection. Among us all, he was the voice of reason, and were he to oppose my plan too strongly, I would begin to doubt myself.

"How will we find it?" he asked.

"On one of the maps I stole, there are caves marked at the edge of the valley," I said. "We need not be guided to their very entrance — surely, as we approach, we will be able to sense the Zebkrahn machine."

"Surely," Dameon repeated slowly, thoughtfully.

"An' we have the arrow-cases," Matthew added eagerly.

"And Ariel's wolves?"

"I can control them," I promised.

Dameon stood quiet, head bowed, mulling over the matter. I knew there was no use in rushing him, but I was too pent up to keep still. Instead, I moved over to the pantry and began to take out jars and sacks, trying to arrange the remaining contents of the shelves so that my plunder would not show. I even took empty sacks, reasoning that cloth of any kind would be valuable to us, for insulation, bedding, and bandages — should it come to that.

"And what is the dark to you?" Matthew asked, almost pleading.

"It is cold," said Dameon, both in earnest and in jest. I smiled but fleetingly.

"We risk much," I admitted. "We may plan to leave at the end of winter, when the passes thaw, and there is more surety of our escape. But if we do not go now, we risk Cameo. Who can say what a winter of this will do to her?"

I knew this barb had hit home by Dameon's wince; it was not my words he winced at, not only, but the pain that they inspired in Matthew. I was amazed at my own fledgling guile, and that I employed it in what I saw as another's aims.

I was just as soon ashamed of myself. I had named Dameon as our leader for his insight and good sense, and now I sought to manipulate him?

Aware, too, of my conflict, Dameon looked up at last, his blind gaze seeming to pass through me. "We will go," he said.

* * *

The kitchen was a short passage away from the yard. I unlocked the outer door, thinking with delight that this might be the last time I stood within Obernewtyn's walls.

I inched the door open. A low growl came from without.

There were more of Ariel's beasts than I'd expected; at least ten paced nearby. I reached out with a probe. "Greetings, wildlings." In response, I heard nothing like words; beastfolk often spoke in images, but this was not even that. A hot, furious seethe of _ragered_ was all I could make out from the wolves' minds; it washed across me and I trembled. "Gently," I sent, and tried again. I found that by gripping tightly onto the mind of one of the beasts, I could still her, but her rage struggled against me on more than a conscious level, dragging me into the red storm.

"Innle, do not!" came a further sending, and dimly, I was aware of fur brushing my hand where I stood in the doorway.

I jerked back from the wolves, dropping back into my body only to find Sharna beside me. "It is not time for Innle to die," he sent urgently, pressing himself against my legs.

"We must pass here," I sent to him.

"You cannot," he replied. "These are oncebeasts, wilder than wild things. They cannot hear speech, only threat and prey. Go another way if you must go."

I shut the courtyard door and leaned against it, giving myself time.

"It didn't work, did it?" Matthew asked. "But you called this dog to you..."

"I didn't summon Sharna," I said. "He came to warn me. He is a friend," I added, feeling as though by declaring him so, I gave up a private part of me, showing my hand far more than I had by venturing to control the wolves.

"Elspeth, will your persuasion get us past here?" Dameon asked.

"I fear not," I said dully. "Nor can I force these beasts; there are too many." Dameon put a hand on my shoulder.

It struck me as ironic that Dameon, so sensitive to emotions, could not feel the wolves' fury: beastminds were closed to him. And it struck me as ironic that his sensitivity should lead him to be so reticent, so hard to read.

For I did not expect Dameon to say, "Then we must take the way Madam Vega and Alexi showed you. It is surely the most direct path to the Zebkrahn machine, and it may be the only one open to us."

Taken aback, I clasped his hand for a moment, with both of mine, and Matthew grinned fiercely.

We made our way back up through the huge house again.

* * *

I pondered this change to our plans. As I had surprised Matthew with my daring, so Dameon had surprised me. What if we came face to face with the rulers of Obernewtyn? There could be no dodging or hiding in a narrow passage.

But, too, if the passage led directly to the machine, we would save ourselves a long walk in the dark — and the snow. I had glimpsed flakes falling when I opened the courtyard door. We would have to face the weather eventually, but the longer we could stay warm and dry, the better.

I grimaced, realising that if the passage took us far out of Obernewtyn, it might take us beyond the farms, where we had hidden further supplies of food and clothing. A waste — and a clue to any who might follow us.

But these were not useful thoughts, and I knew it. It was always my way to pick at possibilities. Some might take strength from the idea that they did only what they must; some might be content with a road that narrowed from three or four choices to one, but that had never been my way. It was always my way to look down the road I had not taken, no matter where my feet would go.

The hostility of the wolves followed me; I felt it like pinpricks on my back. Several times I turned to look behind us, afraid that someone had noticed us moving through Obernewtyn's corridors — Ariel, especially, had an uncanny sense for trouble, and I had seen him watching us at nightmeal — but there was never anyone there.

We reached the doctor's chamber, and stood by the fire, making a last check of our supplies. Again, for a moment, we could talk quietly; it was by design that no one was housed near Master Seraphim, whose weak-mindedness could risk Alexi and Madam Vega's control of the estate.

So we did not hear Selmar approach, until she whispered, "I will come with you."

"Did you not smell her?" I sent sharply to Sharna.

"I sensed no danger," Sharna replied, his calm a rebuke to me.

I thought to coerce Selmar, convince her that she had no reason to be here, and had not seen us at all, but she reacted to a tentative probe with a cry of pain. Her damaged mind was too sensitive for interference. I was at a loss, and Dameon and Matthew looked no more pleased than I.

Perhaps mere words would work where force failed. "We shouldn't be here," I said gently to Selmar.

"I have been here before many times," Selmar said. She looked at me. "And you, once," she said, her mouth twisting. "You return of your own accord."

She trembled. "Always I am afraid," she whispered, bitterly. "I am so tired of fear. I will go with you. I _must_, or I will always be afraid... of them, and of me..."

"You need not feel ashamed," Dameon said. He stepped towards her, but his stride hit the doctor's table, and he stopped.

"I must not run away," said Selmar. Matthew hissed in frustration.

"We're gang to the machine," he said. "How can ye want to come with us?"

Selmar's back stiffened as she stared at him. "Yes, I know where you are going," she said defiantly. "I can help you find it, or..."

"Or what? Ye'll tell where we've gone?" Matthew demanded, moving forwards.

"No," said Dameon firmly, his head swinging between them. "You're no teller of secrets, Selmar."

"Nor am I a keeper of them," she said. "Not when... Ariel..." She cut herself off with a sob that was uncomfortably loud.

I could see no way out of this.

"We can't promise you anything," I warned her. "We go to the machine, but after that..."

"No, and I..." Selmar broke in. I waited for her to finish her thought, but instead she turned abruptly to the wall that was a hidden door, knelt, and swept her hand across the floor, finally to press down on a flagstone a pace or so to the right. I could not see what the sweeping motion had done — perhaps she was merely imitating the gesture that Madam Vega or Alexi had made — but the flagstone responded with a click, and the wall swung open.

Matthew bent to kindle a torch in the banked fire. "No," I said. "If they come back through, they must not see us; we'll have the advantage if we stay in the dark."

"Elspeth is right," Dameon said.

So we walked through into the darkness, sealing the light off behind us with the close of the door.

* * *

Interminable stairs came first. I could not guess when it was that they took us below Obernewtyn's floors and into the earth. They began with short flights and narrow landings; at each landing, the angle of the stairs bent sharply around, reminding me of a kinked coil of wire. Long after I had lost my sense of direction, that bend smoothed out, and the stairway became straight and shallow. The walls were smooth, much smoother than I had expected, and they smelled of something faint and acrid, rather than of mould.

Sharna and Selmar led the way; Selmar seemed to anticipate every change in direction or slope, but she occasionally stumbled on the rough ground, and Sharna pressed up against her legs to steady her. Dameon, Matthew and I walked behind, with Dameon, the surest-footed, in the middle, and Matthew and I reaching out to the walls to find our way.

Matthew also reached out to me.

"We should not have brought her!" he sent urgently. "What use will she be?"

"We have not promised to take her with us," I reminded him silently.

"But," and Matthew choked off his thought, at odds with himself. The mutter of thought that escaped him was full of guilt; he would have found it easier, much easier, to turn Selmar back at the doctor's chambers than to part ways with her at some point beyond the farms. He wished that it were possible to help her, and yet rejected this idea in himself, and felt resentment towards her for his own wish.

I thought, with a flash of cynicism, that there was little difference indeed between Cameo and Selmar for the purposes of our escape. Both were delicate: they could carry only light burdens and would require much assistance to travel in harsh winter conditions. Both were innocents, who had not harmed us; they surely did not deserve to be left to Madam Vega and Alexi's abuses, and Ariel's more personal cruelty. The only difference, indeed, was the attachment Matthew and Cameo had formed.

Small wonder that Matthew felt guilt. I accepted my own harshness; I wanted us to survive, and saw clearly what must not be allowed to endanger this. But Matthew was younger than me, and more sentimental, and could not resolve the conflict between whom he could and whom he could not help.

I kept all of this to myself. He must solve his own riddles of the heart; and, too, the concentration required to move easily through the tunnel gave me a sense of purpose, which brought with it peace. I had no thought for arguing with him when half my mind was on the cold curve of the wall, the heavy scent of the air, the speed of Dameon's step beside me, and the sound of Sharna's soft panting ahead.

How useful it was to have Sharna with us, with his keener nose and ears. I could not have anticipated his help, or asked for it, but I was grateful for it. Perhaps - just perhaps - Selmar's presence would also turn out to be significant in some way.

We walked for perhaps three hours. It must be past the middle of the night. Still there was no light ahead of us to warn of others. (And yet, how much worse now, if we must flee back the entire length of the way we had come...) Selmar kept her pace, surprising me, although I learned from Sharna that she reached for his back's support more and more often. The tunnel began to slope up.

The dark grew no less heavy, but I smelled water and ordinary stone. The sides of the tunnel were more ragged here, scratching my fingertips, until I balled up some cloth from my sack and used it to keep contact with the wall. Then they widened, until neither Matthew nor I could reach the wall and still touch Dameon. We followed Sharna on.

Sharna barked once to halt us. "A feetclimb thing of the funaga," he sent to me. I stepped up beside Selmar, and reached out to find a ladder mounted on a wall. We had come to the end of the tunnel.

Matthew went up first, with two bags, then Dameon, then Selmar, then I, with Sharna slung across my shoulder. He was patient, though in my clumsy handling, he was pushed against the bars more than once. Thankfully, the climb was short, and scraping sounds from above, followed by a chilling breeze, told me that the others had opened the way to the outside.

The ladder ended at a hatchway, which was set in a strangely regular square of stone that rose half a man's height above the ground. Perhaps in ordinary times the space was passed off as a granary — or even used as such. Not all subtle architecture must be used for plots.

I looked around me and felt dismay, for snow — a mere threat in the day just gone — had clearly been falling for some time. The world was smoothed over. At dawn the snow would dazzle us, but in the little moonlight that passed through the clouds, all I saw was grey: a world with the pelt of a wolf.

The snow fell on us, deceptively gentle and light, as we put on our stolen gloves and wound sacking around our heads to protect our faces and ears. We stood in a small huddle on the slab of stone, and Dameon said what we were all thinking: "Which way now?"

"Selmar, which way?" Matthew repeated. Selmar frowned. She went back to the hatchway, bent to touch the ladder, then, having oriented herself thereby, pointed waveringly to one side of the stone slab.

"Ah," said Dameon, a little grimly. "One quarter of all the directions we could take."

Selmar hunched in on herself, and I felt sorry for her. It was much to ask of her to guide us across featureless fields in these conditions. I could not have done it myself.

But I could do something else.

"I know a reliable way," I said. It was yet another dark option I had turned over in my head. One more thing I had hoped not to do.

"Back in autumn, when the machine caught me," I reminded them, "it took over control of my body, and compelled me to walk in its direction."

Selmar shuddered violently. Bunched as we were together, the ripple went through all of us. "Yes, that will take you there," she murmured.

I suddenly wondered if that was how her own ability had been discovered. If once, perhaps, she had been as strong as I was.

"Mayhap I should try," said Matthew. "We're closer to the machine than you were then, so it might be I can reach it. And you said you needed help to break loose, so better you be free to help me than t'other way around."

"Dameon?" I asked.

"Very well," he said.

Matthew concentrated for a time. Minutes passed. I was strangely curious to see this happen to another person — though I must hold back from his mind once he was in the Zebkrahn's grip, lest a casual touch suck me in too.

But — "No," Matthew said, shaking his head. He let out a deep sigh. "I think — I think it's the snow. The weather knocks my probes aside. I can feel traces — and then again I lose them."

"It must be me, then," I said. "I hope you can help me out of the machine's grip. I am stronger now, but if mental efforts fail, it may be necessary for you to damage it by force when we arrive."

"Perhaps no bad thing!" said Matthew, almost laughing, and I was encouraged by him. Sharna licked my hand.

I reached out with my mind. I felt the weather as Matthew had — as though the snow, despite its peaceful falling, held traces of the taint that made the Blacklands storms so vicious. It seemed to tear at my probe, which if it had been weaker would have dissolved entirely. Strange that I now strove so diligently to place myself in the trap that, a season before, I had been so desperate to get out of.

There was the strange humming; there was the alien presence; there I was, _held_ as if an insect stuck to glue-sheets. I put up no resistance, and at once my body began to move without my say. I stepped off the stone slab — I tumbled, with barely the means to catch myself — and walked forwards.

The machine's force pressed my awareness back towards my body. Sharna reached out to me as if to brace me, but the machine latched onto him, grabbing clumsily at him with ill-shaped lines of force. It seemed not designed for beastminds. Furious, I pulled away from the Zebkrahn as hard as I could, diverting its resources from Sharna. I was not freed, but he was. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw him dart away across the snow.

I could not ask him where he was going. My awareness was forced inside my body and held there; a claustrophobic feeling, although only to a Misfit. I felt deaf, and pinioned, my efforts to reach out mentally all pushed back by that prickly force. The inside of my head had been a comfortable and sufficient space, for the silent journey here; but so may be a tiny room whose windows open on vast plains. To have my reach denied me was an agony.

Thinner and thinner I shaped my probe; only the thinnest and sharpest of needle-shapes could pass, though I felt a great relief when I managed it at last. My mind was drawn out like a spun string along the length of the probe, a filament of awareness stretching between _here_ and _there_, though I did not know yet where _there_ might reach. It was as tentative and delicate as if I reached out with one of my own hairs, and just so easily might my control snap.

I stumbled in the snow, often, and the shock of falling placed me more sturdily in my body for a moment, before the others pulled me upright. My legs marched stiffly, inflexibly: I fell again, and felt Selmar's hand supporting me. Then I found myself pressed into gritty stones. I heard myself grunt with the impact, but did not feel myself do it.

"The outer wall," Matthew said. So we had emerged from the tunnel within the farm.

After some arguing which was blown away from me — my blanketed senses further frustrated by the wind — I heard a scraping sound. They were trying to pick the lock with one of the kitchen knives. I supposed it might be possible. Perhaps this was a trick of Selmar's — she had escaped before, after all. Perhaps Matthew had already tried to pick the lock with his mind, and failed. It was hard to keep track of time, when I was cut loose from space in such a way.

I had allowed it control of my body, but the Zebkrahn machine still pulled at me, mindlessly eager for everything I would not give it. I imagined it would go on pulling after I had given it everything that existed in me to give. I strove to stay aware of the fence and my companions, imagining that if I did not, my body would force itself through obstacles until I broke skin, nails, bones. I knew now that I would have to fight back to win back every inch of its control on me — that merely withholding my focus, and conceding my body, was not enough of an advantage to later win free.

Selmar gave a triumphant cry, and Dameon and Matthew tugged on my clothes, moving me from the fence to the opened gate. We went on. The night did not seem to lighten; the snow did not lessen or increase.

Granite outcrops loomed ahead of us. This must be the place.

We skirted a rock-fall, massive and strangely convenient; the entrance it hid was free of boulders, though scattered with smaller stones. I stumbled again, and this time Matthew placed a foot on the back of my ankle to prevent me from getting up. "Wait, Elspeth," he said. "We must scout out the compound for ye."

I wished I could smile. Truly, we had all changed roles tonight. I was no leader, and yet I had proposed our plans; I was no follower, and yet I put myself under a compulsion in order to serve all of us. In our talks, I had declared myself a scout at heart, and yet it was Matthew who was now taking on initiative.

"I will go," said Selmar.

"They'll see no threat in you, to be sure, if you are spotted," Matthew agreed eagerly.

I could not speak, but I felt a sharp unease. Was this the girl who had sobbed with fear in the doctor's office? It was the distance from Ariel that emboldened her, perhaps...

"Wait," Matthew said again, low and urgent. Selmar was walking away, into the caves.

I shaped a needle of a probe again, seeking out Cameo.

My probe touched Selmar's mind, as she moved through passages ahead of us. Hoping that she knew where she was going, I took her as a bearing, and pushed my mind further along the same way.

I did not know how long it was before I found Cameo, deep within the caves. She was weak but alive; she was asleep, but her mind was locked within the Zebkrahn, like mine. The images that she was dreaming flashed out to me; her normal shields were broken down. I saw Marisa's cruel smile, and a dark chasm surrounded by dark lands, from which an oily smoke rose. I saw beautifully carved wood, flecked with gold, and a line of carved stone in the same pattern. I did not want to see these things, and yet if I pulled back from Cameo I feared that my probe would fail, and I would be locked back in my body.

Then a scream cut through my concentration, and I saw through my own eyes again. I was standing in a small chamber, lantern-lit; squares of metal flashed with tiny lights on the opposite wall, and beside them, Cameo lay on a bed, eyes now open and staring at me. Wires ran from her body to the machine — the Zebkrahn, I assumed — I saw some attached at her temples.

But beside her, Madam Vega stood, face twisted in fury; and before them, Alexi stood, or rather knelt, choking blood out on the ground, Selmar's knife buried to the hilt in his back.

"Mutant rat!" Madam Vega spat at Selmar. She struck Selmar brutally across the face. Selmar's head snapped back, and as she crashed to the ground, the impact of skull on floor was sickeningly loud. Her eyes rolled up, and she was still. I thought that Vega might have killed her with that blow.

"Stop!" Matthew screamed, and I saw that he flanked me. "Let them go!" Matthew demanded, eyes on Cameo. At my other side, Dameon stood, swaying slightly, clearly overwhelmed by the storm of emotions within the room.

Alexi was making awful, wet gasps, like bubbles coming up through mud. Madam Vega crouched beside him, looked into his face — which I think I would not have dared to do — and grimaced. Rising again, she yanked the knife out of his back. He moaned, and Matthew hissed in horror; had I been able to I would have thrown up.

"I'll not have you waste all this," Madam Vega said, eyes burning. "I'll find a use for you all before I'm through." She looked down at Cameo. "I thought this one had some value to us, but it seems she's barely a dreamer; not even the machine can extend her very far. Do what I say, or I'll kill her now. You, boy. Tie the others up," she ordered Matthew, and tossed him a stiff, gleaming cord.

With one last choke, Alexi slumped forwards. His blood was a dark, slow-spreading pool across the floor. It had reached the Zebkrahn, and where the liquid touched the machine, it hissed, and fizzed with strange sparks. Seeing this, Madam Vega reached up to a panel of knobs on the wall, and pressed three. The lights went out on the lower half of the machine, though small sparks still danced around its middle shelves; it rumbled as if it, too, were in pain. But I was free.

"Go on!" Madam Vega snarled at Matthew, who still had not moved. "Do you not believe I'll do it?" She lifted the knife above Cameo, who let out a pathetic squeak of fear. I, for one, had no doubts.

Like the tingle of sensation returning to a numb limb, I returned to the full sense of my mind in a wave of rage. I saw Selmar, laid out on the floor; helpless and lost. She had been abused so long, and her agency, so terrible and brief, had ended in her destruction. Now Madam Vega intended to discard Cameo just as carelessly, as though her life were nothing but a means to Vega's ends.

I struck out at Madam Vega with the full force of my mind, just as she had struck down Selmar; and yet my blow was greater, because in my anger I drew forth a power I could never have imagined.

Rosamunde had said that my brother had killed soldierguards with the touch of his mind alone, and I had not believed her. Now I experienced it myself, as the wielder of that dark power. I tore a gash through Madam Vega's mind, causing irreparable harm. She screamed, collapsing backwards, and I too fell, bonelessly. The world was dark, and quiet.

* * *

I woke to cool, dry air on my face, and a warm body pressed against my back. I turned to see who was there; to my shock, Selmar lay beside me.

"She only sleeps, but she hasna woken since she fell," Matthew said, appearing above me.

"But she lives," I said, wondering.

"Aye," said Matthew, grinning. "And ye, and Cameo too."

I probed towards Selmar's mind, and found my abilities slow to respond, as though I moved weights instead of tendrils of thought. This had happened to me before, when I had done something difficult or new; I expected to recover.

Selmar's consciousness was withdrawn deep within her mind, closer to the mindstream than I dared to go at my current strength. I could not guess when she would wake.

I accepted Matthew's hand to lift myself into a sitting position. Selmar and I were on a barely cushioned pallet, in an alcove at the side of one of the cave passages. Cameo lay on Selmar's far side, serene in a more natural sleep, and Matthew sat on the edge of the makeshift bed.

"How long did I sleep?"

"Two days from when the machine killed Madam Vega," said Dameon.

I strengthened my shields, hoping none of my surprise showed by my face or thoughts. Of course, Dameon and Matthew would not have felt the machine release me, so there was nothing to link me to Madam Vega's death. It had been emitting sparks before she screamed. I supposed that the machine was the only apparent reason for her collapse.

I hoped neither they, nor any other, would ever guess the truth: that I had the ability and, it seemed, the will to take other's lives. And yet my company fitted me. I could not condemn Selmar for her attack on Alexi, though I did wonder if she had planned it, or even dreamed truly of it before it occurred. Hers was a more complex mind than I had realised.

As was usual, my questions did not end there. "What happened at the entrance?" I asked. There was a gap in my memories from then until when I had stood before the machine.

"Selmar broke away," said Matthew, grimacing. His underthought filled out the scene: Selmar's movement into the cave had startled Matthew, and at that moment — the moment, I supposed, in which I remembered seeking after Cameo — I had shaken off his grip and moved after her. He had not been able to restrain me, and because of his limp, and Dameon's unfamiliarity with the caves, the other two had fallen behind Selmar and me.

That was my fault too, I thought. If the snow-taint had affected the psychic grip of the machine, then its strength must have increased when I came within the cave. I had not planned for that.

"How do you feel?" I asked Dameon, remembering how he had bowed under the onslaught of Alexi's agony, Madam Vega's fury, and our fear.

He smiled wryly at me. "I am recovering," he said. "We are not a robust lot, all considered."

Three weak, one sleeping, and one well. It was truly said. We were a sorry band.

So much energy and time lost. And more, too, wasted; I could not be sorry they were dead, exactly, but I had felt Madam Vega's mind collapse; there was a vast difference between the burning of an aware mind, and the void it left behind.

My thoughts were full of defeat. I shook myself: it was not over. We must plan; perhaps we should rest in the caves for longer, perhaps we should leave immediately. There was Selmar to think of. I did not truly know how frail Cameo was. And there was one other member of our party whom I wished to gather in, if I could.

"Sharna," I muttered. Drawing a deep breath, I created another probe, determined to hold its shape despite my weariness. I searched the area for the dog, reasoning that he must have taken shelter somewhere in the past two days.

I did not find Sharna's mind.

I found the othermind that had first saved me from the Zebkrahn.

"Little sistermind, familiar to us," it observed. "Well met."

That was more than I knew.

"Who are you?" I sent, guardedly.

"So quick to ask, so slow to trust," it replied. "Who are you?"

I hesitated.

"As for who I am, that depends on many things," the othermind sent cannily. "So I ask you, reaching sistermind: where is Alexi? Where is Madam Vega?"

"Not here," I said, but I was tired, and my shields let through some of my underthought; I sensed triumph from the othermind. It had what it wanted.

"They are dead?"

"Yes," I admitted. "Why does it matter to you?"

"If it is so," said the othermind, "then I name you, by my guess, as Elspeth Gordie, and I name myself to you: Rushton Seraphim, who is now the Master of Obernewtyn."

* * *

There was a great deal to explain. The letters I had read in the doctor's study had hinted at a complicated line of descent within the Seraphim family, but I never could have guessed the story Rushton told: his mother had been the beloved of Michael Seraphim when the previous Master of Obernewtyn was young. Michael had bonded with another woman, of whom the feeble Doctor was the child. Rushton hd grown up with only half-clues as to his heritage, but a real claim nonetheless.

A wild story, but backed up by others: Rushton explained that he was not alone in the mind that reached out to me. The othermind with which I spoke was the result of the efforts of several Misfits who combined their strength, using Rushton as the focus.

I thought cynically that the truth of something was not always as important as whether others were prepared to proclaim that truth. Rushton's story qualified in that regard.

"What of Ariel?" I sent.

"A long tale," Rushton replied. "He has attached himself to the Councilmen that came in search of you."

_Of me!_

"Your reputation precedes you," Rushton sent. "They were sent to fetch a dangerous Misfit."

"What did you tell them?"

"Much of the truth," Rushton sent, irony flavouring his thought. I thought with a flash of anger that he was no more easy to speak with this way than when he was physically present. "A truth will speed many lies. We told the Councilmen that Madam Vega and Alexi hatched dark plans, backed up by many of their own notes; we told them that they had spirited you away; we told them that you had been caught in the blizzard and were certainly dead."

_The blizzard?_ I wondered. Even the elements had moved on without me in grand plots while I lay insensible.

At that last, something darker had crept into Rushton's thought, but I could not catch at it. My strength was failing. I wondered, wearily, if it would have been easier for him if I _had_ died.

"Ariel fawns on the Councilmen," Rushton told me frankly. "I think he sees his gain lies elsewhere, and I am not sorry to see him go. He has offered to assist the councillors in deciphering Madam Vega's notes, claiming that he is horrified to have aided in sedition."

The thought of Marisa Seraphim's writings in the hands of Ariel made me uneasy; but he, Madam Vega, and Alexi had pored over them for years, with little to show for it. This was dangerous, but perhaps not disastrous.

"And now?" I asked, caught between curiosity and exhaustion.

"The bodies of Madam Vega and Alexi will be a final proof," Rushton said. "We will come to collect them. You must stay where you are for now; let Ariel hear no word of you."

So I, the shadowy dangerous Misfit, was to be the scapegoat for Alexi and Vega both. Another truth wrapped around a lie.

"And then?" I thought. "Where will you have me go?" I thought of solitude, of the passes. Perhaps the new Master of Obernewtyn would allow me to stay until spring. It seemed there were many more gifted Misfits in the world than I had imagined. It was a stranger world, and yet a more welcoming one.

"No, Elspeth," Rushton said, with strange warmth, as my hold on the probe finally failed, and his thoughts grew tattered. "There is a place for you at Obernewtyn."

* * *

I sat up slowly again, wondering wryly when it had been that I had last felt bright and refreshed. Dameon and Matthew were elsewhere. Cameo's hand touched my wrist, as light as a moth.

"Elspeth," she said.

"Cameo," I answered. A simple exchange, but so gratifying.

She smiled at me, bright and painful, like the sun on snow.

"There are things I must speak of to you," she murmured. "Things I dreamed in the machine."

"Later," I said. "We'll speak of them under sunlight."

"Yes," said Cameo. "But they are dark things, and they are only for you to know."

"I'll keep them safe," I promised.

She squeezed my wrist. "You will keep us all safe," she avowed. I grimaced, feeling rather unlike a hero, but she shook her head minutely. It was not our rescue attempt she referred to, but something greater.

We had all emerged from our ordeal with burdens.

Footsteps in the passageway; Dameon and Matthew returning. "There is much to tell you all," I said.

* * *

One last surprise awaited me. Along with the party from Obernewtyn came a familiar dog — and a familiar cat. "I have found your mad cat of beasttale," Sharna said, his tongue lolling and his thoughtspeech also full of laughter.

"_Maruman!_" I cried, and knelt to stroke him, cuddling as close as he would allow. He endured this for a moment, then stalked away. "I am needed by Innle's side," he informed me. "Since you would not come back to the valleys—" a thought full of pique — "I have come to the barud of the mountains." I wondered helplessly what he would say if I declared I were leaving again. Perhaps I should take his coming as a sign. It certainly gladdened me.

"I am glad you are well," I sent to Sharna cautiously, wishing to imply no accusation, but curious nonetheless about his abrupt parting, before we had reached the cave.

"I felt a push," Sharna replied, accompanying these words with an image of the slippery, prickly force of the machine's grasp, and his aversion to it. "I also felt a summons."

He would say no more. Well. I supposed I must allow my beast friends their secrets, as I kept so many.

Among the humans who came to collect the previous rulers of Obernewtyn were some I knew: Louis Larkin, a sourfaced man called Domick, and a farm worker called Roland. I eyed them curiously, wondering what to think of them, and what they thought of me. Louis greeted me brusquely and went to see Selmar.

"I thought nae to see her agin," he said, pitching his voice low as he regarded her. "And mayhap I still shan't," he added bitterly.

"She sleeps," I said. "I can say no better than that, nor worse."

"And ye'd know," Louis conceded. "Ye're another of her kind, or so they say."

Perhaps 'our' kind outnumbered the Talentless here.

Roland, who declared he had some healing craft, looked over Selmar, and then examined Cameo and me too. He declared that Selmar need not be moved that day, which was in accordance with their plans — I could see the wisdom of keeping her away from Ariel — and so they departed, leaving me, Dameon, Matthew, Cameo, Selmar, Sharna, and Maruman to spend the day in a kind of meditation, ministering to Selmar, speaking little, and eating the food in our bags.

How meager our supplies had been. How naîve we had been to imagine that we could survive in the high mountain valleys and caves, like robber bandits in an oldtime tale. How foolish we had been, and how fortunate.

Leaving aside the dark confusion of the rest, I was glad that we had chosen to go; I was glad that Cameo lived as the reward of our choice. In this precious thing, I was almost content with myself.

More of Rushton's friends returned to help us back to the house. They brought a litter for Selmar, which I helped to support in shifts. It was a slow, careful procession, with an air of ceremony to it; with an air almost of a festival, although the wind flicked knives of cold across the surface of the snow.

I reflected on my last glimpse of Obernewtyn's structure. Standing at the door to the courtyard, I had imagined that I might never step inside its walls again. I had proved myself wrong only moments later, when we had retreated from the pacing wolves; but perhaps, in another way, I was right. The Obernewtyn that I returned to was a thing transformed; where the strangers I had suspected as informers might now be imagined allies, if not kin.

I wondered how it would be to look upon Rushton again; if he would appear changed, now that his hand was played. He had always been so secretive. I had found him impossible to read. In the past I had thought he despised me; I now knew that to be false, but I did not know what he truly thought of me.

I tossed my head; _pride_ was a quality I was known for, and one I would own, for now. If I owed much to Rushton, surely he owed as much to me. I would approach him as an equal, and see what he offered.

I might be pleasantly surprised.

Anything seemed possible, with my oldest friend on my shoulder and my new friends ranged beside me.


End file.
